I have recently been looking for and testing some websites to find out which ones are the best to promote photography work. I focused on the sites for professional photographer who are also interested in fine art photography.

My research started from the sites which allowed to build a profile with a gallery and offer some support and advice to emerging photographers.
I also looked at photo sharing sites where members can comment photos, exchange experience and in general build a community.
My research ended with online photography magazines which can be a very good way of self promotion.

I am planning to share with you what I find out in the next few posts.
Here are the first two sites which I looked at:

‘Saatchi gallery on line’ is owned by Charles Saatchi and is definitely a good place to show personal work.
Everyone can register with, for a free account. So, you will find there a huge mixture of people and different quality of work. It is not only for photographers. It is, in general, for visual artists and if you go through some galleries you can find some interesting stuff.

The site just got a new face lift and some new features were added. You can not only build your own profile with portfolio but also create a collection of your favourite other users works, build a network of friends and make comments under each other works.

They run a competition which is free to enter and the winner receives ￡1000 and more importantly the wining image is exhibited in Saatchi gallery.
The competition is called ‘Showdown’ and more about the rules and how to enter can be found here.
The only thing which actually struck me as odd is how the winning work is selected. It says, in the competition rules, that all the site visitors are free to vote. The question is who are these visitors? Are they artists, friends of artist or just anyone. I would like to think they are people who actually have got an idea about arts and their job involves art.

Wooloo organization is a website I registered a couple years ago and really haven’t been active there. I did not find it appealing to me at the time.
I received an e-mail from them the other day about an update so I went to the site and WOW I was surprised. It looks great and has got most of the features I was looking for.

The mission of the WOOLOO organization is to build an art community where artists can collaborate and promote their work to the international market. It is not only for photographers but for the artists in general. This is a good opportunity to see the work and connect with other artists.

When you create your profile and gallery on the site, you can mark the images for sale and price them. I do not actually know how the sale is process and if WOOLOO takes some percentage but it would be good to find out. Also I wonder if any one managed to make sales there.

The other interesting bits of the site are two sections called ‘open calls’ and ‘openings’.
‘Open calls’ features posts about possibility of exhibitions, residential, joining the projects, competitions or curatorial proposals etc. while the section ‘Opening’ is for you to promote your own exhibition or event.

The contact between other members is possible through messages and comments under their work which is really great. At the same time it creates real community and supporting atmosphere.

Recently WOOLOO started doing ‘picture of the month’. Any member can submit one piece of work and each month WOOLOO curators will short-list five artist. The winner will be promoted by WOOLOO partners.

Hope you go there, see what WOOLOO is all about and then come back and write your comments here.﻿